Among environmental causes of disease and death, research has shown that the work environment is particularly hazardous. Controlling health risks at work is potentially highly effective as preventive health care, yet occupational safety is scarcely considered health care at all. A major problem for health planners attempting to devise long range performance targets for the health sector, is that historically the study of disease etiology and preventive health measures have been functionally and administratively separate from medical treatment. This fragmentation of responsibility for health care is strikingly evident in occupational health, where responsibility for health has traditionally been divided between industrial regulatory agencies, often under the jurisdiction of state departments of labor, and the health care treatment sector, usually private practitioners with little experience in occupational health hazards. The proposed research has two major objectives: 1) to document historically in the key period the process by which responsibility for occupational health became fragmented, and 2) to provide explanations of the social, political and ideological forces that led to fragmentation. Conclusions will also be offered about the past and present consequences of the lack of coordination of services in occupational health. The method used is a historical case study of the industrial hygiene movement in New York State. Primary sources, including state and local legislative documents, court decisions, state departmental files and publications, the archives and publications of important voluntary associations, and papers and publications of major participants will be used to trace the development of occupational health policy and its implementation.